French Open 2012: Andy Murray defeats Tatsuma Ito in straight sets at Roland Garros to progress to second round

What is the Japanese for “blowing hot and cold”? Tatsuma Ito may not have held
Andy Murray up for long in Tuesday's first-round match, which Murray won
6-1, 7-5, 6-0. But he did create a few problems, mainly because you never
knew what was coming next.

Staying strong: Andy Murray survived a second-set wobble on his way to his first-round defeat of Tatsuma Ito in ParisPhoto: AP

In what was his first outing on a major show court at a Grand Slam tournament, Ito made a dreadful start, handing over the first set in just 24 minutes without asking any serious questions of Murray at all.

But when Murray then lost concentration in the second set, serving two consecutive double-faults to concede an early break, Ito suddenly found inspiration.

He spent the next half-hour romping around the court like a pocket Godzilla, ripping his groundstrokes with a speed and venom that belied his slight frame. (He is 5ft 11in tall, which is tiny by modern tennis standards.)

By the end of Ito’s feisty patch, Murray was looking thoroughly flustered, and even clutching at his stomach in that way that he does when the ball is refusing to obey his commands.

It would have been even worse had he dropped serve again in the eighth game, after slumping to 0-40 with a wayward series of shots.

Meanwhile, Anne Keothavong played a poor match against Melinda Czink of Hungary, going down 6-1, 6-2 to exit the French Open.

Had she won, she would have overtaken Elena Baltacha as Britain’s No1, which would have improved her chances of receiving one of the wild-card entries to the Olympic tennis tournament in July. But she never managed to disrupt Czink’s steady rhythm, and now appears a long shot to be present at the Games.